NEWSPAPER POETS: CHARLES WELDON.
Reading edition
Some of the best poetry in America makes its appearance in the newspapers, without pretension, and often without the names of its authors. It is enough for them to write, and publish, whoever will may take the fame. This indifference to public opinion does not arise from any want of autorial vanity perhaps, but in most cases from that modesty which an acquaintance with and self-measurement by the best standards never fails to produce in sincere lovers of art.
Recently a series of noticeable poems has from time to time appeared in the Tribune, without any name or clue to their authorship except the enigmatical initials O. O. They are by Mr. Charles Weldon; he is still a young man, and the poems below, we have been told, are the first that he wrote. Their niceties of rhythm in many cases would reflect credit on the recognized masters of the poetic art. In this respect they are remarkable; but perhaps their greatest charm is a certain kind of subtle but masculine thought. They embody what most men feel, but lack words to express; strange facts of impression and consciousness, half-formed philosophies, and those glimpses of truth which are revealed to the mind in certain moods, as stray rays of the moon on a cloudy night. In this respect they resemble the best pieces of Emerson, who seems to be a favorite with Mr. Weldon. In others they remind us of the simplicity of "In Memoriam." By this we intend a compliment rather than a charge of imitation. Mr. Weldon's thoughts are too peculiar to come from any one but himself, and too original to be cast in other moulds. We shall watch his progress with interest, and are mistaken if he does not do something worthy to be long remembered.
Mysterious interpreter, Dear Aid that God has given to me! Instruct me, for I meanly err; Inform me, for I dimly see. I know thee not: How can I know?— I sought thee long, and lately found, Wearing the sable weeds of wo, A figure cast upon the ground. Thou wert that figure. Face to face We have not stood: I dare not see Thy features. We did once embrace, And all my being went to thee. Henceforward never more apart We wander. All thy steps are mine. Thou hast my brain: thou hast my heart: Thou hast my soul. And I am thine. ...*...*...*...* The Sun has his appointed place, He never rests, and never tires; And ever in serenest space Burn the celestial, upper fires. They shine into the soul of man— Good works of God, but not the best— And he adores them as he can, Cherishing a supremer guest. He does not know the alphabet Of angel-language, who aspires Against the sky his tube to set, And spell them into worlds, those fires. ...*...*...*...* The Petrel, bird of storms, is found Five hundred leagues from any ground: He dwells upon the ocean-wave; He screams above the sailor's grave. How many tens of centuries Ere mankind built their theories, Skimming the foamy tracks of whales, Did he outride the stoutest gales, Upon three thousand miles of sea From land to land perpetually Rolling; and not a wave could stay, From day to night, from night to day, Without an anthem? Where are gone The anthem, and the sea-bird's moan? Where is the splendor of the morn That rose on seas, ere man was born? Where are the roses of the years, Ere Mother Eve knew mother's cares? Where is the clang of Tubal-Cain's First brass, and where are Jubal's strains? Where is the rainbow Noah saw And heard a law, or thought a law? The rainbow fades, the beauty lives; The creature falls, the race survives. ...*...*...*...* They tell us that the brain is mind, Or the mind enters through the brain, Even as light that is confined And colored by the window pane. The act is fashioned by the head, And thus man does or cannot do; Through the red glass the light is red. Through the blue glass the light is blue. They do not urge their world-machine To sounder progress, nor explain The difficulties that were seen And felt before—pray what is brain? All undiscoverable, how Can they resolve the Whence or Why Man grew to being in the Now, Or what is his Futurity. ...*...*...*...* Down the world's steep, dread abysmal, Icy as Spitzbergen's coast, Through the night hours, long and dismal, Ghost is calling unto ghost; Crushed is every fairer promise, And the good is taken from us; Sorrow adds to former sorrow, And, with every new to-morrow, Some expected joy is lost. But I will not shrink nor murmur. Though a spectre leads me on; Now I set my footsteps firmer, Face me now, thou skeleton! Trance me with thy fleshless eyeholes— But I move to other viols Than the rattling of thy bones, As we tread the crazy stones, For I see the risen sun. With my face behind my shadow Thrown before the risen sun, Life I follow o'er the meadow, And an angel thrusts me on. Every little flower below me Seems to see me, seems to know me; Every bird and cloud above me Seems (or do I dream?) to love me, While the Angel thrusts me on. Where the turf is softest, greenest, Does that Angel thrust me on; Where the landscape lies serenest In the journey of the sun. I shall pass through golden portals With him, to the wise Immortals, And behold the saints and sages Who outshone their several ages, For an Angel thrust them on. ...*...*...*...* The poem of the Universe Nor rhythm has, nor rhyme; Some god recites the wondrous song, A stanza at a time. Great deeds he is foredoomed to do, With Freedom's flag unfurled, Who hears the echo of that song, As it goes down the world. Great words he is compelled to speak, Who understands the song; He rises up like fifty men— Fifty good men and strong. A stanza for each century! Now, heed it, all who can, Who hears it, he, and only he, Is the elected man. ...*...*...*...* The frost upon the window pane Makes crystal pictures in the night; The Earth, old mother, wears again Her garment of the shining white. We fly across the frozen snow With bounding blood that will not pause. Oh Heaven! we are far below— Oh Earth! above thee, with thy laws. The happy horses toss their bells; The sleigh goes on into the far And far away. (A whisper tells Of flight to where the angels are.) Glide forward. As a star that slips Through space, we know a large desire; And though our steeds are urged by whips, We haste as they were urged by fire. Dash forward, Let us know no rest— But on, and on, and ever on, Until the palace of the West We enter, with the sinking sun. And forward still, until the East Releases the aspiring day; And forward till the hours have ceased, Oh Earth! now art thou far away. ...*...*...*...* The mountains truly have a glorious roughness; I do not hear the pyramids are smooth; The ocean grandly foams into abruptness; Does God peal thunder down a well-oiled groove? Thou, with a poet's roughness, friend, would'st quarrel; Staggering o'er the ridges of ploughed speech, You move uneasily. Well, the apparel Of verse is trivial. Try the sense to reach.